Breeding th carriers

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moodog5

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Jun 5, 2010
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ohio
What's everyone's thoughts on breeding a th carrier cow to a th carrier bull?
 

justintime

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Saskatchewan Canada
Totally insane! I have no idea why so many people love to live on the edge and even think of doing this, especially with all we know about the genetics of defects like this. If you have ever seen a TH calf, you would never try this again!  Before TH was identified, we used an Improver grand son on a set of heifers that were great grand daughters of Improver. We had 5 TH calves in one week when they started calving. Every one was much alive and trying to get up. Their back legs were twisted together and short heads with weird placed eyes. Three of the 5 had holes in their skulls and part of their brain pushing out with every breath they took. This is not anything I ever want to experience again. 

In this day and age, when we have genetics from all over the world available to us, I cannot understand why we just can't raise some cattle that can improve our beef industry. It should be as much fun to show breeding cattle as it is to breed show cattle.
 

Cabanha Santa Isabel - BR

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Aug 15, 2012
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Rio Grande - RS - Brazil
Scary justintime description!
How a guy that works and, I think love cattle, can make this kind mating, having in mind that the probability to get this scenary...keep doing this kind matings!

A question....Club Calves people that show the animals....are the breeders or they only buy the calves from another? Any king statistics about it? How many are breeders and show the calves...and how many are only show the animals and buy from another ones?

To me this is an ended matter!
 

beebe

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Apr 29, 2014
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Breeding a carrier to a carrier will only produce more carriers.  I can see no reason for that.  Is it practical to use a carrier bull on a set of crossbred cows with no shorthorn in them if all calves are marketed as meat?
 

justintime

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beebe said:
Breeding a carrier to a carrier will only produce more carriers.  I can see no reason for that.  Is it practical to use a carrier bull on a set of crossbred cows with no shorthorn in them if all calves are marketed as meat?

If you can 100% guarantee that all the calves will be marketed for meat, there probably is nothing wrong with this. My problem is that once a carrier bull or female leaves your yard, you really have no control over what they will be used for. There are lots of examples of people selling carrier bulls to commercial producers who say they aren't keeping any daughters of the bull, but when they take their calves to the sale barn someone buys some heifers as replacements not knowing that they are carrying a potentially lethal defect gene.
There are not many guarantees in this business and oftentimes our production and marketing decisions are changed by many factors. A strong or sluggish market can change your decisions, as can weather conditions, other employment and health factors etc.
In a perfect world I think anyone who produces beef genetics should be trying to eliminate genetic defects that can have harmful effects. There are also genetic defects that can offer good traits. Polled cattle originated from a genetic defect that resulted in good economic influence in the industry. Unfortunately the world is not perfect!
 

CAB

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  From #s stand point, plan on having to put 25% of the calves down not to mention the percentages of resulting carrier cattle in the remaining calves born. PPL that breed carriers to carriers are willing to gamble B/C of the money that they get selling the live calves, but they are few and far between. Meaning that there are a few PPL that have the type of market that can afford and stomach losing 25% of their calves. JMO.
 

chambero

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Texas
I don't think the major breeders do this.  You see the TH bloodlines crossed, but I suspect they are using tested clean females.  Frankly, I don't there is an upside because in my experience it would be next to impossible to get a calf that would get big enough with a double shot of the common carrier bloodlines.
 

Buck

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Jul 29, 2009
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Don't do it!!! I did it one time not knowing the cow was a carrier and the result was sickening. I said I would never do it again.
 
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